


One Year’s Time

by tessykins



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Crossover, F/F, Year That Never Was
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-15
Updated: 2008-08-15
Packaged: 2017-10-19 13:24:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/201321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tessykins/pseuds/tessykins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elle and Claire during the Year That Never Was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Year’s Time

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to see what would happen to some of the Heroes character in the midst of Doctor Who's The Year That Never Happened, when the Master takes over the world. Martha Jones is the key to his defeat, using the Doctor's name to tie into the Master's telepathic network.

_Day 1_  
Claire goes to the Company facility, her father’s gun in her hand. Her father may have made a deal, but she never agreed to give up her dad. Not to these people. She picks the hour the aliens are supposed to make contact, figuring they’ll provide her with enough of a distraction.

She runs into Elle in the bottom-most level of the building. The woman smirks as she lets fly a bolt of lightning, killing Claire instantly.

Claire gasps back to life and staggers to her feet. She points the gun at Elle. “Where is my father?” she growls.

Elle laughs, tosses her hair over her shoulder.

Then the screaming starts.

They stare at each other, animosity forgotten. Then they’re running down the hallway. And Claire can see them: the Toclafane, the orbs that were supposed to be friendly visitors. The orbs flash, whirling deadly spines and burning lasers. They’re killing everyone in the building and there’s nothing she or Elle can do to stop it.

Claire heaves at the heavy bunker door that separates the cells from the rest of the facility. She pulls until it slams shut, sealing them in safely.

Elle shrieks and shoves her aside. “My father’s out there!” she cries.

Claire drags her back, and pins the other woman’s arms to her sides.

Elle fights against her hold, crying out in desperation, “Daddy!”

Elle’s lightning flares around them, earthing on the concrete walls and scorching Claire’s flesh. The electricity bursts out of control in a blaze of blue light. The electricity arcs through the building, killing everyone left. Elle’s screams and the screams outside blend and mingle in Claire’s ears as Elle kills her over and over again.

\---

The facility outside their safe haven is a killing field. The orbs killed everyone in the building, massacring them in horrible ways. Claire thinks she heard the orbs laughing. The bodies left behind are mangled, some in pieces.

Elle runs heedlessly, tripping over corpses. She stumbles into a lavish office and freezes.

Claire glances around her and catches her breath in horror. Red blood splattered across the wall like paint on canvas, a steady spill across the floor. It’s hard to believe there’s only one body.

Elle drops to her knees in the pool of blood beside her father’s mangled corpse. She wails helplessly, falling on to her hands in the still tacky blood. Her hair falls around her face, the ends staining bright garish red. She reaches out a hand, then jerks back.

She staggers to her feet and spins on Claire. She grabs Claire’s jacket, truning fabric wine-dark. “Bring him back,” she pleads, sobs catching in her throat. “Your blood can heal. Bring him back!”

A wave of pity swamps Claire. She shakes her head. “No. Not with that much damage…the brain…” She stops, not wanting to go on.

Elle keens and sags against her. Claire holds her enemy as she weeps.

 _Day 5_  
Her mother and Lyle are either dead or gone. The house is empty and free of blood. Claire thinks to herself that her mother is smart enough to keep them on the run and safe. Every morning she chants it to herself: _They’re safe, they’re safe, they’re safe_.

Elle is unstable, by turns catatonic and homicidal. She’s killed Claire twice since breakfast. She wasn’t the stablest personality to begin with, but Bob’s death has only made it worse.

Claire calls everyone she can think of; Zach, the number for Peter’s apartment, her biological father. She finally breaks down and calls her grandmother, desperate to hear from anyone.

There’s nothing but the empty dial tone.

  
 _Day 21_  
They find a concrete bunker in Nevada, not terribly far from Las Vegas. It fills slowly with people, survivors from all over the western coast. Survivors with hollow eyes and broken families. The bunks fill slowly, but steadily.

They watch as the TVs grow blank, the radios cut out, until the Master’s voice is all that’s left.

In the midst of it, Peter shows up.

Claire isn’t as happy to see him as she expected. His face is scarred, remnants of his battle to try to save Nathan. He’s harder, and colder; he doesn’t have time to comfort his niece anymore.

He has plans to help them all, to organize them to fight the Master.

Claire’s beginning to suspect the Master can’t be fought.

  
 _Day 62_  
Claire jolts awake. It’s dark out, must be nearly midnight, and the compound is silent. Or nearly silent. Claire hears the soft susurrus of sheets and turns her head.

Elle is sitting on the bunk next to hers. The other blonde is ghostly in the gloom, curled in on herself, knees drawn up to her chin.

“Elle?” she asks softly.

The other girl jerks, then turns to her. In the dark, her eyes are only shadows. “I couldn’t sleep,” she says.

Claire nods. She sleeps from exhaustion, works herself until she drops. Anything to avoid the dreams. “Nightmares?”

Elle nods. “I’m afraid,” her voice is so small, so broken, that Claire can’t help but feel sorry for her. “I don’t want to be alone,” her voice quavers.

Claire doesn’t say anything, just shifts over on her bunk.

Elle lies down beside her with a grateful sigh.

Claire is silent as the other woman curls up against her.

Neither dreams that night.

  
 _Day 82_  
Claire barely wakes as Elle climbs into bed beside her. It’s become usual, almost normal to lay beside each other, warding off the nightmares.

She shifts sleepily as Elle tucks herself against Claire’s side. Claire feels a soft touch like a kiss drift across her lips.

She’s forgotten the sensation by morning.

  
 _Day 87_  
Elle climbs into bed beside her and Claire wakes fully. Nightmares again, she sleeps fitfully.

Elle stares at her for a long moment, then leans down and kisses her.

Claire blinks. There’s none of the violence she might have expected in this. She lets her eyes close and kisses Elle back.

She tastes gloriously alive.

  
 _Day 93_  
They have sex for the first time, quiet moans and sighs muffled in the dark. Secret and safe, the two of them together. For a few moments, the chaos outside ceases to exist.

  
 _Day 122_  
Niki Sanders nearly killed a Toclafane. Niki Sanders is dead. There’s only Jessica now. Jessica has the strength to handle the world when her sister/self couldn’t. Jessica can protect the compound, can drive off the orbs.

But Jessica isn’t the important one, Claire knows.

It’s Micah, her son. The boy who can talk to machines. For a glorious moment, Claire thinks he might be able to save them all.

  
 _Day 125_  
It isn’t a smart plan; it’s simple but it might work.

Peter fires off a bullet from their three hoarded guns. A Toclafane descends, blades spinning, to investigate.

Micah reaches out with his mind.

Then the plan goes horribly wrong.

Claire catches the boy as he collapses, screaming.

  
 _Day 128_  
The screaming doesn’t stop for three days. Claire hides in the opposite side of the complex, the screams reminding her too vividly of the day the Toclafane came and killed. Elle sits and shivers beside her, sparks jumping uncontrollably from her hands. It’s been four months since Elle found her father’s corpse.

Claire holds Elle’s hand, ignoring the way the electricity scorches her skin.

When Micah finally stops screaming, it’s only to whimper and gibber nonsense.

Claire fights the gnawing feeling in her chest that they’ve lost.

  
 _Day 151_  
Rumors come to Las Vegas of a woman who will defeat the Master. Martha Jones.

Martha Jones was the only person to escape the burning of Japan. Martha Jones crossed the killing fields of Russia.

Martha Jones will save us all.

Claire tries not to listen, tries not to hope. She’s learned not to trust too much to hope.

  
 _Day 179_  
There is a dead zone in the skies above Las Vegas. They’ve fought long and hard to keep the Toclafane from here. The Master gives in worryingly easy, declaring Vegas an oasis. The last free bastion of gambling and prostitution. Apparently the Master is partial to a bit of sin and debauchery.

Their family is a strange one. Niki, who’s cracked into Jessica again. Jessica, who has the strength to handle the world. Peter, scarred and changed. Micah, who tried to speak to an orb and lost his mind, leaving him a gibbering child. Elle, who laughs as she shoots off sparks and cries in her sleep. Claire, who’s having sex with the woman who was once her worst enemy.

Claire knows there are others, other cells spread across the city. But they don’t meet; it’s too dangerous now, with the Master’s eye on them all the time.

  
 _Day 196_  
Martha Jones is real.

Hiro, their sometimes visitor, has seen her face. There’s a weapon, a gun in four pieces that Martha Jones will use to kill the Master. She’ll end the reign of terror.

For the first time in months, Claire feels real hope.

  
 _Day 295_  
Seven months and two weeks after the first attack, Martha Jones comes to Las Vegas.

Claire pulls her into a hug. She pulls away and goes to shake Elle’s hand Elle sparks at her in jealousy.

They capture a Toclafane by luring it to their base and throwing Claire on it. Claire grits her teeth and screams as the alien rips into her and kills her.

Elle shoots out lighting at the silver orb, killing it in a blue flash of light.

Martha smiles, wide and vindictive. She tries to question Elle about voltage and amperes, but Elle’s power has never worked by numbers.

Martha shrugs, with a sad smile. “I know someone with the equipment, now that I have the idea.”

And then Martha tells her story. “There's someone else,” she says. “The man who sent me out there. The man who told me to walk the Earth. His name is the Doctor. He has saved your lives so many times, and you never even knew he was there. He never stops. He never stays. He never asks to be thanked. But I've seen him. I know him. I love him. And I know what he can do.”

The next day, Martha leaves them to continue her journey. Claire looks into Martha Jones’ eyes and knows that she will save them.

  
 _Day 365_  
“They found her! They found Martha Jones! The Master has her!”

Claire’s breath catches in her throat, and she runs into the compound, Elle at her side.

TV screens across the city flicker to life. Martha Jones stands on the deck on the Valiant.

She kneels and for a moment, Claire thinks they’re lost.

Then Martha laughs and Claire knows, _knows_ that they’re going to win.

“Doctor,” she says, and she puts one year into it. One year of hate, of blood, of loss.

She reaches out and takes Elle’s hand. Their eyes meet and they say it together. “Doctor,” and Claire puts into it everything she’s found within herself, within Elle.

“ _Doctor!_ ” and it’s a name that means love.


End file.
